Friday, February 5, 2010

Horror Rises from the Tomb 1972

Alright, I get. Paul Naschy is the MAN. This is only the 2nd or 3rd Naschy film I have watched. I have not seen any of his Werewolf films, an oversight that I will soon remedy. Horror Rises from the Tomb was recommended to me as a good Naschy primer. It is a film that truly has everything: Witches, executions, murder, crumbling castles, crypts, decapitations, naked women, naked Naschy (just glimpsed), gore, men in turtlenecks, Werewolves and Vampires (mentioned but not seen), cannibalism, and, I think, necrophilia (implied.)

What, may I ask you, is not to like. Before I get into the film itself, may I just say that Naschy looks a lot like Marlon Brando. For some reason I kept thinking of Brando circa Superman.

He also looks a hell of a lot like John Belushi. Check it out...


They could have been brothers.


Naschy plays multiple roles in this film (he also wrote the screenplay.) At the start of the film he is an evil warlock, who does nasty things like turning into a wolf and vampire and eating babies (not shown on film.) He and his girlfriend (the witch) are executed by his OWN brother (harsh.) The Warlock (named Alaric de Marnac) cursed the descendants of his executioners before his head is chopped off. The executioners have the good sense to bury the head away from the body...so that his soul can never return.


Cut to present day (1972) Paris. Hugo de Marnac (the descendant, also played by Naschy) is livin the good life, walking around in turtlenecks and seducing the ladies. One night, he and his friends go to a seance. Marnac is a non-believer, but he can't help but be intrigued when the medium tells him the final resting place of the Warlock's head. Marnac hightails it out to the family estate with his buddy and two hot chicks. On the way they encounter French Hillbilly Mountain Justice and Naschy gets to play action hero. Long story short they get stuck at the estate, find the head, reunite it with it's body, raise the dead, piss off the villagers, and get killed. I mean EVERYBODY gets killed in this film. One person survives, and it is not who you think. There are also Zombies (see above picture.) And lots and lots of nudity...


My god he looks like John Belushi. And Stuart Townsend. But neither of those guys could hold a candle to Naschy. He is short, stocky, kind of weird looking, and totally hot. Really, he has such a swagger he makes all the ladies swoon. I am looking forward to watching more Naschy films. If you haven't already, I can't recommend Horror Rises from the Tomb enough. Much like Black Sunday (which this film reminded me very much of) Horror has just about everything you could ever want in a genre film.

1 comment:

Zelmarific said...

Maybe there should be a new genre of horror: turtleneck men.